BPSC 69th CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 62 of 144

Correct — C, A type of embroidery. The Geographical Indications Registry settles this in its own words, and the record is public. Application No. 74 on the GI register is titled 'Sujini Embroidery Work of Bihar'; its status is Registered, its date of filing 21-09-2006, its class 26, its goods category 'Handicraft' and its geographical area 'Bihar'. The applicant is not a private firm but the Development Commissioner (Handicrafts), Ministry of Textiles, Government of India, at West Block No. 7, R.K. Puram, New Delhi — the same office that filed most of India's craft indications. The registry advertised the application in GI Journal No. 18 with an availability date of 03-08-2007, issued Certificate No. 45 on 23-11-2007, and the registration currently runs to 20-09-2026. The authorised users entered against it are village women's collectives rather than firms: the first on the list is Mrs Nirmala Devi, President of the Bhusura Mahila Vikas Samiti of Gram Bhusura, and the Adithi/Plan Project, the development organisation credited with reviving the craft commercially, appears on the same list alongside societies at Benipatti, Pandaul, Andhrathadhi and Jhanjharpur. Sujini, also spelt Sujani, is worked as a quilt: layers of soft used cotton cloth are stacked and then stitched over in coloured thread, the needlework itself simultaneously binding the layers together and drawing the figures — women, animals, village scenes, and in the modern revival social themes such as dowry, female foeticide and girls' schooling. That the entire object is made with the needle, and that the registry filed it under the word 'Embroidery' in its very title, is why the answer cannot be any of the other three.

• (a)A type of glassware — Bihar has no registered glassware indication at all, and India's glass GIs belong to Uttar Pradesh — Firozabad Glass (applications 155 and 156) and Varanasi Glass Beads (application 177), with Chunar Glaze Pottery (621) as the nearest glazed-ware entry. The option is tempting only because 'Sujini' means nothing in particular to a candidate meeting it for the first time, and any craft word can then be attached to it; the defence is to know the Bihar handicraft GIs by technique rather than to guess from the sound — Sujini is the stitched one. Note too that glass is an urban, kiln-and-furnace industry, whereas every one of Bihar's registered crafts is a household or village craft worked by hand.
• (b)A metal craft — Bihar holds no metal-craft GI either. The registered metal crafts of India sit elsewhere — Moradabad Metal Craft (161 and 162) and Jalesar Dhatu Shilp (722) in Uttar Pradesh, Bastar Dhokra (83) in Chhattisgarh, Pembarthi Metal Craft (194) in Telangana, Budithi Bell and Brass Metal Craft (89) in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka Bronzeware (62) and the Aranmula metal mirror (3) in Kerala. Candidates who half-remember Dhokra lost-wax casting as an eastern-India tribal tradition often misfile it under Bihar, when the registered indication is Chhattisgarh's.
• (d)A type of clay pottery — Again nothing in Bihar. The pottery indications on the register are Khurja Pottery (178) and Nizamabad Black Clay Pottery (459) in Uttar Pradesh, Blue Pottery of Jaipur (66) and Pokaran Pottery (519) in Rajasthan, Manamadurai Pottery (561) in Tamil Nadu and Meghalaya Lyrnai Pottery (1095). Nizamabad black pottery is the specific trap, because Nizamabad here is a town in Azamgarh district of Uttar Pradesh — not a Bihar place, and not the Telangana city of the same name either.

A geographical indication is a sign used on goods that have a specific geographical origin and possess qualities or a reputation due to that origin. India legislated for them in the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999, which came into force on 15 September 2003 to meet the country's TRIPS obligations under the WTO; registration lasts an initial ten years and is renewable, and section 24 bars a GI from being transferred, mortgaged, assigned or licensed, so it can never become tradable private property in the way a trademark can. The first Indian GI was Darjeeling tea. The register distinguishes a registered proprietor — normally an association, a government body or the Development Commissioner (Handicrafts) — from authorised users, who are the actual producers entitled to apply the mark. Bihar's registered handicrafts form a short and learnable list: Madhubani Painting (application 37), Applique or Khatwa Work of Bihar (73), Sujini Embroidery Work of Bihar (74), Sikki Grass Products of Bihar (75), Bhagalpur Silk (180) and Manjusha Art (656). Three of those — Khatwa, Sujini and Sikki — were filed together on 21 September 2006, which is why they so often appear as a set in question papers.

Reason from the register, not from the sound of the word. Six Bihar handicrafts were on the GI register when this paper was set, and only one of them is stitched: Sujini. Treat any 'complete list' of Bihar GIs as dated — three more craft GIs were certified in March 2026 — but the discriminating fact is unchanged, because Sujini remains the stitched one. Khatwa is applique, cut-and-sewn cloth patchwork; Sikki is basketry woven from golden grass; Madhubani and Manjusha are painting; Bhagalpur Silk is weaving. Once that list is in place the three distractors collapse together, because Bihar holds no glass, metal or pottery indication whatsoever, and every registered Indian craft in those three categories belongs to another state. The second discriminator is the name itself — the registry's official title is 'Sujini Embroidery Work of Bihar', so the answer is embedded in the entry, and the class assigned to it, class 26, is the textile-trimmings class in which lace and embroidery are grouped. Two cautions are worth carrying. First, application 1090 on the same register is 'Bharuch Sujani Weaving' from Gujarat — a woven fabric with a confusingly similar name, a different craft and a different state; a question that pairs 'Sujani' with Gujarat is not automatically wrong, and you must read which spelling and which product is meant. Second, the register records the geographical area for application 74 simply as 'Bihar' and no district at all, so treat district-level attributions of the craft as description rather than as a legal fact, however commonly they are repeated.

• GI application No. 74, 'Sujini Embroidery Work of Bihar' — filed 21-09-2006, class 26, goods 'Handicraft', geographical area 'Bihar', advertised in GI Journal No. 18, Certificate No. 45 dated 23-11-2007, registration valid up to 20-09-2026
• The applicant of record is the Development Commissioner (Handicrafts), Ministry of Textiles, Government of India; the authorised users are village women's societies, headed on the register by the Bhusura Mahila Vikas Samiti and including the Adithi/Plan Project
• Bihar's six registered handicraft GIs: Madhubani Painting (37), Applique Khatwa Work (73), Sujini Embroidery (74), Sikki Grass Products (75), Bhagalpur Silk (180), Manjusha Art (656) — none of them glass, metal or pottery
• Bihar's other GIs are agricultural or food goods: Bhagalpuri Zardalu (551), Shahi Litchi of Bihar (552), Katarni Rice (553), Magahi Paan (554), Silao Khaja (584), Mithila Makhana (696), Marcha Rice (801)
• Applications 73, 74 and 75 — Khatwa, Sujini and Sikki — were all filed on the same day, 21 September 2006, and a second round of registrations for the same three crafts (536, 537, 538) followed on 28 December 2015
• The Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999 came into force on 15 September 2003 for TRIPS compliance; registration runs ten years and is renewable, and section 24 forbids assignment, transfer, mortgage or licensing of a GI
• Do not confuse it with GI application 1090, 'Bharuch Sujani Weaving' of Gujarat — registered on 22-05-2023 in the Handicraft class, a similar-sounding name for a woven, not embroidered, product from a different state
• The register distinguishes the registered proprietor from the authorised user: for Sujini the proprietor is a Government of India office, while the right to actually apply the mark belongs to the listed producer societies — which is what makes a GI a community right rather than a company's property

• Mixing up Bihar's stitched crafts. Sujini is embroidery worked with the needle over layered cloth; Khatwa is applique, where cut shapes are sewn onto a ground fabric
• Confusing Sujini of Bihar with Bharuch Sujani of Gujarat, a woven fabric registered separately as GI application 1090
• Assuming any famous craft category must exist in every big state. Bihar holds no glassware, metal-craft or pottery GI, so options built on those categories are answerable by elimination alone

BPSC asks the direct identity question — what is Sujini, what is Khatwa, which district has Manjusha — because the state syllabus expects Bihar's crafts to be known individually and because a single line from the register makes a clean one-mark question. UPSC almost never asks 'what is it'. It asks the pairing, as in the 2018 Craft–Heritage matching set where 'Sujni embroidery — Maharashtra' was one of the deliberately false pairs, or it asks whether a named good carries GI status at all, as in 2015 with Rajasthani Daal-Bati-Churma, or it asks about the statute itself and its TRIPS origins, as in 2010 and 2018. Learning the craft with its state and its application number attached answers every one of those styles at once.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which of the following Bihar crafts is registered as a Geographical Indication in the 'Handicraft' class?

  • (a)Bhagalpuri Zardalu
  • (b)Sikki Grass Products of Bihar
  • (c)Magahi Paan
  • (d)Katarni Rice

  Answer(b) Sikki Grass Products of Bihar — GI application 75, filed 21 September 2006 in the Handicraft class. Zardalu, Magahi Paan and Katarni Rice are all Bihar GIs too, but they are registered as agricultural goods.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Khatwa work, a registered Geographical Indication of Bihar, is best described as

  • (a)Applique work, in which cut cloth shapes are stitched onto a ground fabric
  • (b)Painting on handmade paper using natural pigments
  • (c)Basketry woven from golden grass
  • (d)Tie-and-dye colouring of cotton fabric

  Answer(a) Applique work, in which cut cloth shapes are stitched onto a ground fabric — registered as 'Applique (Khatwa) Work of Bihar', GI application 73. Painting is Madhubani, golden-grass basketry is Sikki.